The Toolbox: World-Building (“If You Build It, They Will Come”)

What is world-building? World building means developing a rich, detailed and convincing landscape for your characters and for the reader. Whether you’re writing a fantasy novel set on Mars in 3013, or a realistic novel set in Minnesota in 2012, your job is to make readers forget they’re reading a book, and convince them that they’re inside a true experience, that they are witness to a world that exists beyond the page. Books that do this successfully—the Harry Potter series, for example—have lasting impact, because readers can be subsumed by the world of the book—they never want to leave!

Why it’s important: A unique and fully-realized world could be the key to making your novel stand out in an already very competitive market. Most agents will tell you they’ve seen thousands of “coming of age” stories on submission and that they all start to blur together. It’s extremely difficult to prove that your version is fresh and worth picking up. Having a distinct and believable world will make your book more special… and if readers can only experience that world in your books, they’ll have to just keep reading more of them!

Why it’s hard: When you’re super excited about your story idea, you may have a hard time knowing what “world questions” to ask yourself. After all, it all makes sense in your head. Say you want to set a kinky romance on an alternate planet that’s just like Earth but where there’s no such thing as sexual orientation. It’s 50 Shades of Gray meets Avatar! You tell your boyfriend all about it. The first thing he says is, “but do the people on this planet know about real Earth?” You stare at him blankly, annoyed that he’s not focusing on the awesome love triangle you were just describing between your main character and two aliens. You’re even more annoyed because you hadn’t yet considered this question. And you’re most annoyed because this could have huge repercussions on your story: If the answer is no, how is it possible they don’t know about real Earth? Is there a giant cover-up conspiracy? Has all knowledge been lost due to some kind of disaster? If they do know about it, what’s their relationship to real Earth? Are they in direct competition with it? Are they a colony, under real Earth’s rule? Is real Earth gone now? Why? As you can see, every “logic hole” leads to a series of other questions—and opportunities. These questions will be daunting, and will demand a lot of time, attention, research, and, well, agony. But your book can’t simply ignore them—unless you’re okay with the entire world ignoring your book.

How to start: When you were in fourth or fifth grade, someone probably told you that you should address a few key points first: Who, What, When, Where, and Why. Turns out, this is great advice when it comes to world-building. Jot down your answers to these questions!

Who: World-building is as much about people as it is about place. All societies are defined by structure and organization, and this is equally true for, say, a country as it is for a high school, a gardening club, or a tight-knit group of friends. Your world—whatever it is—will be at least partially defined by major conflicts between groups of people (rich vs. poor; mean girls vs. geeky girls; boys vs. girls) and by social hierarchy. Who are the authority figures in this world? Are there secret sects or societies? Conspirators? Warring factions? How are these groups intrinsic to the world you’ve chosen?

What: What is this world—a subterranean realm? A posh summer spot? A middle-of-nowhere town? A wealthy suburb, or an impoverished urban area? The what goes beyond a simple name. The what of a place is its essential makeup: big or small, rich or poor, country or city, cage or castle.

When: Deciding when your story takes place will influence every single detail. If it’s a book set in the 19th Century, you’ll steer clear of convertibles and televisions and anachronistic phrases like “dude!” If it’s a book set in the future, you’ll have to think about how technology and social conventions might have evolved. Even if you set the book now, you have an obligation to remain consistent—you can’t just ignore the advent of cell phones, for instance!

Where: Is your book set on Mars? A current Los Angeles? An underground bunker below Paris? The location should be linked to the primary situation. If it’s a story about family conflict, perhaps you want to intensify the drama by having everyone trapped in a small house in a small town, in, say, a blizzard. If your story is about a girl who sees fairies, you’ll need to ask yourself if there are fairies everywhere or just where she lives and if the latter, why there? What about her specific location makes it an ideal spot for fairies to hang out? Which leads us to…

Why: Why is it important that your story occur here, and only here? What is special about this location? How does it mirror or complicate your main character’s issues?

Follow the Rules. You may not always think about the rules that govern our real lives—that’s because we take them for granted. We don’t sit around everyday going, “this gravity thing totally sucks—I want to levitate!” or “dude, I just don’t get why we only have two eyes!” But the rules are there nonetheless, and they don’t just change one day when you wake up. This is especially important to remember if you’re writing fantasy, paranormal or dystopian novels—the rules in your book may in fact be different from our real-life rules, but they must remain consistent in order to be believable. Can your characters fly after consuming mint oreos? Fine. But that means that they mustalways fly after eating mint oreos—and never fly after eating milanos. Is gravity less powerful on your fictional planet? Fine, but that has to affect everything from the way people move to the boiling point of water. YOU CANNOT SIMPLY MAKE UP THE RULES AS YOU GO. If you try to change or tweak or adapt your world-rules partway through, what you’re doing is completely undermining the previously-established rules, which in turn completely undermines your readers’ trust in you. And when that happens? They don’t buy it anymore. They no longer care.

Elizabeth Miles, author of Fury, a paranormal series set in a fictional town in Maine, offers some advice on keeping your rules organized:

“I decided to make a ‘Fury cheat sheet,’ a short synopsis of the mythos I was creating. When you’re building something from the ground up, it’s important to have an extremely concrete set of rules, even if some of the minute details don’t make it into the narrative—you still need to know the answers. One of the most important pieces for me was realizing that the Furies had a logic all their own—that their choices didn’t necessarily need to fit into my conceptualization of good/evil, moral/immoral. Once I wrapped my head around that, it was easy to let their particular brand of evil—one that knows few boundaries and wants to wrap its fingers around everything it sees—permeate the books. From there, my ultimate goal was to infuse even the non-paranormal scenes with an undercurrent of darkness.”

Go for full immersion.Ooh, we love Elizabeth’s idea of permeating the book. We love undercurrents of darkness! Remember, you don’t want to tell readers all the rules of your world. Nothing’s worse than a long string of dialogue in which one character says, “the thing about us aliens is that we can only fly when we eat mint oreos,” and the other character says, “but what about mint milanos?” Just because it’s dialogue doesn’t mean it isn’t still a totally obvious shortcut to explaining the rules of your world. What you want to do instead is truly immerse us. And you do that by making all the detailsshow how the world works.

Here’s a tip on immersion from Fiona Paul, author of Venom, a steamy historical mystery set in late Renaissance Venice:

“My imagination is selective. It will embrace the task of describing the love interest’s taut muscles or the glistening tendrils of hair clinging to his forehead after he does battle in the name of honor or justice. However, when I have to describe a house (or a chair or an old lady or a teacup) it shuts down, and what ends up on the page is: ‘The house was empty except for the old lady sipping from a teacup as she sat nestled in a chair.’ Zzzzzzz. Boring. What I do is let my imagination go wild when it wants to, but when it starts to stall out I go looking for things that trigger sensory experiences. Maybe that means interviewing someone or poring over strangers’ vacation photos of Venice on Flickr. Maybe it means spying on old ladies at the grocery store or heading off to the oldest cemetery I can find in the dead of night armed with only my trusty journal. Each setting has its own requirements, and I have done (and/or googled) a lot of unusual things in the name of getting a scene just right.”

Be specific. Real life is extremely specific. Not only do you sleep in a room, you sleep in a room in a bed in, say, the back of a railroad apartment in New York City where you can constantly hear the traffic; or in the attic room your parents converted for you after your older sister went to college. You don’t just drive a car. You drive an Acura you inherited from your Dad, or a Honda you saved up for by babysitting for a super bratty kid who lives down the street and refuses to go to sleep until you let her watch Toddlers and Tiaras. You don’t eat dinner. You eat chili at Applebee’s and then you have heartburn. Novels should have just as much specificity as real life.

NOTE: This does not mean that you should clutter your novels with useless or excess details. A few key specific ones will allow your readers to fill in the blanks. Try to see every detail as an opportunity. It can (and should!) tell us more about what kind of world we’re in. Do all the kids in high school drive Beamers? Or run-down Buicks patched together with duct tape? Or personal space ships? Specific, well-chosen details inform the reader about what world we’re in, and relieve the author from explicating everything. Specific details are a form of showing, not telling!

This doesn’t mean you should simply list details, either. You want the details to appear organically amid the action and dialogue. Don’t tell us she’s walking into her childhood home and that there’s a hand-knitted blanket thrown over the back of the couch, sewn by her grandmother in 1936, and then launch into dialogue. Instead have the character walk in, flop down on the couch, and absentmindedly play with the worn fringe on the old blanket grandma knitted, all while she’s talking. Immediately we’ll have a deeper sense of the world and the character’s role within it, without noticing how this information was given to us.

Field of Dreams. Finally, world-building happens as much off the page as on. It happens in the mind, in dreams, in conversations. Talk to people about your book’s world, as much as possible. Let them ask those glaring logic questions you’ve been avoiding. A fictional world is like an invite-only party; you can’t invite readers in unless you are a fully-fledged member of the world yourself. So dive in, and dare to dream!

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26 responses

Wonderful post, especially pointing out how detail works in world building! I heartily agree! On my blog (don’t mean any BSP, just to be helpful) I have posted generator sites that can be used to create worlds along with some worksheets if anyone’s interested. http://www.pibarrington.wordpress.com (Future Imperfect)

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Hi would you mind letting me know which hosting company you’re
working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 different web browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most. Can you suggest a good internet hosting provider at a honest price? Thank you, I appreciate it!
Fantastic blog you have here but I was curious if you knew of any discussion boards that cover the same topics discussed in this article? I’d really love to be a part of community where I can get suggestions
from other experienced people that share the same interest.
If you have any recommendations, please let me know.
Thanks!
Hi there! This is my first comment here so I just
wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I truly enjoy reading through your
articles. Can you recommend any other blogs/websites/forums that
deal with the same subjects? Many thanks!
Do you have a spam issue on this site; I also am a blogger, and I was
curious about your situation; many of us have created some nice procedures and
we are looking to swap techniques with other folks, why not shoot me an email if interested.

Please let me know if you’re looking for a author for your site. You have some really great posts and I believe I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d
love to write some material for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.
Please shoot me an e-mail if interested. Kudos!
Have you ever thought about including a little bit
more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is important and everything.
Nevertheless imagine if you added some great photos or
videos to give your posts more, “pop”! Your content is excellent but with pics and clips,
this site could undeniably be one of the
most beneficial in its field. Terrific blog!

Neat blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere?

A theme like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make my blog stand out.
Please let me know where you got your theme. Kudos
Hi would you mind sharing which blog platform you’re working with? I’m looking to start my own blog in the
near future but I’m having a tough time choosing between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I’m looking for something completely unique.
P.S Apologies for being off-topic but I had to ask!

Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The
words in your post seem to be running off the screen in Opera.
I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.
The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed soon.
Thanks
With havin so much content do you ever run into any issues of plagorism or copyright violation?

My blog has a lot of exclusive content I’ve either written myself or outsourced but it appears a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my permission. Do you know any solutions to help protect against content from being stolen? I’d genuinely appreciate it.

Have you ever thought about creating an e-book or guest authoring on other sites?
I have a blog based on the same ideas you discuss and would really like to have you share some
stories/information. I know my viewers would appreciate your work.
If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an email.
Hey there! Someone in my Facebook group shared this site with us so I came to give it a look. I’m definitely
enjoying the information. I’m bookmarking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Fantastic blog and terrific design and style.
Superb blog! Do you have any helpful hints for aspiring writers? I’m hoping to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost on everything. Would you suggest starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m completely confused .
. Any tips? Thank you!
My coder is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.
I have always disliked the idea because of the costs.
But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using Movable-type on a number of websites for about a year and am
concerned about switching to another platform. I
have heard good things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress content into it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Does your website have a contact page? I’m having a tough time locating it but, I’d like to send you an e-mail.

I’ve got some suggestions for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great site and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.
It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d
certainly donate to this brilliant blog!
I suppose for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to brand new updates and will share this blog with my Facebook group. Chat soon!
Greetings from Los angeles! I’m bored at work so I decided to browse your blog on my iphone during lunch break.
I enjoy the info you provide here and can’t wait to take a look when I get home. I’m shocked at how fast
your blog loaded on my cell phone .. I’m not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyhow, wonderful blog!
Hi! I know this is kinda off topic however , I’d figured I’d ask. Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest authoring a blog post or vice-versa? My website addresses a lot of the same topics as yours and I think we could greatly benefit from each other. If you’re interested feel free to shoot me an
email. I look forward to hearing from you! Excellent blog by the way!

Right now it sounds like Movable Type is the best blogging platform out there
right now. (from what I’ve read) Is that what you are using on your blog?
Fantastic post however , I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this topic? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit further.
Thank you!
Good day! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could find a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having problems finding
one? Thanks a lot!
When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now
each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment.
Is there any way you can remove people from that service?
Bless you!
Howdy! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche.

Your blog provided us useful information to work on.
You have done a wonderful job!
Greetings! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was
wondering which blog platform are you using for this website?
I’m getting sick and tired of WordPress because I’ve had issues with hackers and I’m looking at alternatives for another platform. I would be awesome if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.
Hey! This post could not be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this post to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us something informative to read?
Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!
Yesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole my apple ipad and tested to see if it can survive a 25 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is entirely off topic but I had to share it with someone!
I was wondering if you ever considered changing the page layout of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or 2 pictures. Maybe you could space it out better?
Hi, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam feedback? If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can advise? I get so much lately it’s driving me crazy so any
support is very much appreciated.
This design is wicked! You definitely know how to keep a reader amused.
Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost.
..HaHa!) Fantastic job. I really loved what you
had to say, and more than that, how you presented it.
Too cool!
I’m really enjoying the design and layout of your website. It’s
a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more enjoyable for me
to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a
designer to create your theme? Great work!
Hey! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but after checking through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
Anyhow, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back
often!
Hey! Would you mind if I share your blog with my twitter group?
There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Thanks
Hey there, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your website in Chrome, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, fantastic blog!
Wonderful blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to
get there! Thank you
Hey there! This is kind of off topic but I need some
advice from an established blog. Is it difficult to set up your own blog?
I’m not very techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about
creating my own but I’m not sure where to start. Do you have any ideas or suggestions? With thanks
Hey there! Quick question that’s totally off topic.
Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My web site looks weird when viewing from my iphone.

I’m trying to find a template or plugin that might be able to resolve this issue. If you have any suggestions, please share. Thanks!
I’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your sites really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your website to
come back later on. Many thanks
I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did
you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you?
Plz reply as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to find out where u got this from. thanks a lot
Amazing! This blog looks exactly like my old one! It’s on a
entirely different topic but it has pretty much the same page layout and design.
Wonderful choice of colors!
Heya just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue.

I’ve tried it in two different web browsers and both show the same results.
Whats up are using WordPress for your site platform? I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and set up my own. Do you require any html coding knowledge to make your own blog? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hi there this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to get guidance from someone with experience.
Any help would be enormously appreciated!
Hey! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any problems
with hackers? My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I
ended up losing many months of hard work due to no backup.
Do you have any methods to prevent hackers?
Hey there! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m definitely enjoying
your blog and look forward to new posts.
Hello there! Do you know if they make any plugins to protect
against hackers? I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on.

Any tips?
Hey there! Do you know if they make any plugins to
assist with SEO? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good results.
If you know of any please share. Thanks!
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own blog and was wondering what all is needed to get setup? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty
penny? I’m not very web savvy so I’m not 100% positive. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Hmm is anyone else encountering problems with the pictures on this blog
loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog.
Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

I’m not sure why but this weblog is loading incredibly slow for me. Is anyone else having this issue or is it a problem on my end? I’ll check back
later and see if the problem still exists.
Hey there! I’m at work browsing your blog from my new iphone! Just wanted to say I love reading through your blog and look forward to all your posts! Keep up the superb work!
Wow that was odd. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear.
Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyway, just wanted to say great blog!

Hi, Neat post. There is an issue with your website in internet explorer, could test this?
IE nonetheless is the marketplace leader and a good
component of people will pass over your fantastic writing because of this problem.